Turkey’s Afrin Invasion Torpedoes Sochi Conference

The invasion of Afrin pretty much undermined any hope that the Sochi conference on Syria would get the kind of results that either Putin or Erdogon (of Russia and Turkey respectively) hoped to see happen ahead of their elections.

The meeting of the Syrian National Dialogue conference in Sochi recently was a victim of Turkey’s military invasion of northern Syria, which has now entered its second week.

More than 1,500 Syrian delegates attended the Russian-hosted all Syrian “dialogue” in Sochi, which included unusual crosstalk between representatives of the government and those from groups outside the government. Despite the unwieldy proceedings and inconclusive results, the scale and scope of the discussions cannot be easily dismissed, despite the absence of key opposition groups and the failure of the meeting to ramp down the recent uptick in fighting.

While the boycott of the mainstream opposition High Negotiation Committee was expected, the absence of any Syrian Kurdish parties also meant that Turkey’s military operation against the People’s Protection Units (YPG) was not on the conference agenda.

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